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"Taxation is economically and socially inefficient; ground rents create more wealth and better government."
"As Hayek pointed out in "The Road To Serfdom", an economy is so complex that the cost of measuring something is often greater than the benefit of measuring it. Therefore top down control is doomed to fail. People who emphasise this tend to oppose centralisation (except as it arises naturally from the market) and are called right wing.
Meanwhile, as any casual observer will note, much of the actual productive work is carried out by the poorest workers, whereas a person can grow very rich through rent seeking. People who emphasise this tend to measure a society's economic health by its equality and are called left wing.
Land rent solves both problems. By charging rent for idle land the biggest inequalities are ended, while letting the market allocate resources more efficiently than under any tax based system."
The means to better government is not figuring out ways to increase revenues but to reduce corruption and self interest in government.
Renting land is a means test.
There is something about needs and abilities that always comes up, usually in the form of a new way to explain communism and how much better we'd all be off if we'd just make government bigger, let it dictate just a little more and let the smart people tell everyone else how to run their lives.
When the people who are part of the problem start telling everyone else how to fix the problem, it's time to re-evaluate their positions and cull the herd.
If you can't truly own your own land, you are always a sharecropper.
Poor people fled Europe by the thousands to come to the US and work their own land.
Black people in the southern US were kept poor and in practical enslavement as sharecroppers.
Americans should be able to actually own their own land instead of acting as sharecroppers to the US government.
Property taxes and inheritance taxes are directly responsible for much of the rise of corporate farms and decline of family farms.
We need to eliminate inheritance taxes and shift property taxes.
I think this best emulates my feelings on the subject. There does seem to be a trend of trying old things again and simply labeling them as something new. Property ownership and property rights were large drivers in the American success story. As we continue to tax the property owners into a sharecropping type of situation, with the US government as the landlord, we move further and further away from what made this country so successful. I do not think the answer to our problems is to return to a system that has, in history, proven itself to be unjust and unfair to the people who work the land.
The problem with a land rent 'solution' is that the one who owns the land can change the rules at any time. Don't want to grow X type of crop anymore? Simply forbid it. Don't like the way the land is being used? Simply forbid it. Increasingly, we're seeing this type of overreach already via regulatory agencies, laws for the 'common good', and taxes. We certainly do not need more of it. We should return the land to the people who actually own it and eliminate any taxes that are tied to the land.
I think this best emulates my feelings on the subject. There does seem to be a trend of trying old things again and simply labeling them as something new. Property ownership and property rights were large drivers in the American success story. As we continue to tax the property owners into a sharecropping type of situation, with the US government as the landlord, we move further and further away from what made this country so successful. I do not think the answer to our problems is to return to a system that has, in history, proven itself to be unjust and unfair to the people who work the land.
The problem with a land rent 'solution' is that the one who owns the land can change the rules at any time. Don't want to grow X type of crop anymore? Simply forbid it. Don't like the way the land is being used? Simply forbid it. Increasingly, we're seeing this type of overreach already via regulatory agencies, laws for the 'common good', and taxes. We certainly do not need more of it. We should return the land to the people who actually own it and eliminate any taxes that are tied to the land.
There are always people out there trying to float this kind of stuff to see if they can get some traction.
But a 1% 'transaction tax' would solve everything.
A general 1% tax on any and all transactions, including contracts (taxed at a rate of 1% of the money involved) - and the same tax on every single transaction humanly possible (including bank deposits, buying a loaf of bread, etc, etc) and it would enable the income tax to be eliminated completely since it is nothing more than a tool to control classes and make social stratification possible. A 1% tax on every financial transaction (that includes Wall Street) alone would fund 50% of government expenditures alone annually. It is not about taxing existing wealth and/or earned income: a 1% transaction tax. Way easier to enforce than the IRS tax code and every other way the government has dreamed up to take money away.
1% of everything. It would actually enable the country to grow economically on a level unknown before, assuming all of the other ways to tax and control were eliminated.
But a 1% 'transaction tax' would solve everything.
A general 1% tax on any and all transactions, including contracts (taxed at a rate of 1% of the money involved) - and the same tax on every single transaction humanly possible (including bank deposits, buying a loaf of bread, etc, etc) and it would enable the income tax to be eliminated completely since it is nothing more than a tool to control classes and make social stratification possible. A 1% tax on every financial transaction (that includes Wall Street) alone would fund 50% of government expenditures alone annually. It is not about taxing existing wealth and/or earned income: a 1% transaction tax. Way easier to enforce than the IRS tax code and every other way the government has dreamed up to take money away.
1% of everything. It would actually enable the country to grow economically on a level unknown before, assuming all of the other ways to tax and control were eliminated.
Do you want a bank run? Cause' this is how you get bank runs.
The answer is to reduce the size of government at all levels. Te Federal Government now contributes almost 20% of the GDP. Far too dependent on government spending in the economy. Reduce government size, reducing taxes and regulations, overall economic growth and tax revenues will increase from the growth of the private sector.
"Taxation is economically and socially inefficient; ground rents create more wealth and better government."
"As Hayek pointed out in "The Road To Serfdom", an economy is so complex that the cost of measuring something is often greater than the benefit of measuring it. Therefore top down control is doomed to fail. People who emphasise this tend to oppose centralisation (except as it arises naturally from the market) and are called right wing.
Meanwhile, as any casual observer will note, much of the actual productive work is carried out by the poorest workers, whereas a person can grow very rich through rent seeking. People who emphasise this tend to measure a society's economic health by its equality and are called left wing.
Land rent solves both problems. By charging rent for idle land the biggest inequalities are ended, while letting the market allocate resources more efficiently than under any tax based system."
What happens when a person's economic circumstances change -- lay off, poor health, etc. -- and they can no longer afford the rent on the land under the home they own?
Do you want a bank run? Cause' this is how you get bank runs.
Bank runs occur when people realize that there is only about $1 in a bank for every $10-15 dollars that are out circulating. Bank runs are the result of fractional reserve banking and fiat money.
Returning to an objective standard of value in terms of currency would have to be a prerequisite for any changes to taxation. And that is never going to happen which means that Rome will continue to burn slowly.
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